multiple inboxes appearing after moving thunderbird-portable

[fang-face]

I observed the following behaviour with either of 3 different portable versions of Thunderbird: paf (:= portableapps.com), gnu (:= http://thunderbird.gnupt.de/ ) and caschy's (http://stadt-bremerhaven.de/category/po ... d-deutsch/ ):

short story: moving thunderbird portable to another place multiplies the inbox-folders of the imap-accounts (I don't know about pop).

long story (sorry for the length of the text):

1.
tb-portable is "installed"/ extracted somewhere, e.g. X:\portable_apps\tb-portable .
The structure in the profiles-folder is this:

\profile\ImapMail\account_a\Inbox.msf
\profile\ImapMail\account_b\Inbox.msf
\profile\ImapMail\account_b\Inbox\<several files/ subfolders>
\profile\ImapMail\account_b\<several other mailfiles or subfolders (sent, travel, personal, ...)>
\profile\ImapMail\account_c\Inbox.msf

(For the paf-version that's in ThunderbirdPortable\data\profile by default, for the gnu-version it's Thunderbird-Portable\Thunderbird-Profil , for caschy's it's Portable_Thunderbird\Profilordner.)

Everything works ok!!!

2.
Now I move or copy the whole tb-folder to another place (for whatever reason): Y:\<maybe different path>\tb-portable (where X=Y is allowed) (e.g. Y:\test\portable_apps\subfolder\tb-portable , so the drive-letter changes or the path). The content INSIDE the thunderbird-folder remains unaltered ("app, data, other" for the paf-version).

2.a. (Alternative)
I "install" a second version of thunderbird-portable and copy the existing profile to that new version:
Y:\<some path>\tb-new\data\profile (for the paf-version).

3.
I start the new thunderbirdportable.exe .

4.
In thunderbird I open (log in to) account_a to watch for mail (but NOT account_b or c). All seems fine.

5.
I close thunderbird and start it a second time (using the wrapper/ launcher/ loader of course).

6.
I open account_a AND b, but not c. Initially b and c have only an Inbox and no subfolders, but they reappear on opening -- however not with the originally configured view (which columns in which order) but the standard view instead.

7.
I observe the folder structure:

\profile\ImapMail\account_a\Inbox.msf
\profile\ImapMail\account_b\Inbox.msf
\profile\ImapMail\account_b\Inbox-1.msf
\profile\ImapMail\account_c\Inbox.msf
\profile\ImapMail\account_c\Inbox-1.msf

and similarly for other (sub-) folders. Whenever thunderbirdportable gets started again, account_c gets another Inbox-2, -3, ... (in the filesystem, not in tb), until it is opened. Only those accounts work normally that have been opened when the new tb has been started for the very first time -- all others get multiple inboxes.

When I delete all those Inboxes and start tb again, all works fine. That is: if there is an inbox (the existing profile), when tb is started, and I don't open this account to watch for e-mail, then this account gets an additional inbox. This process stops when the account is opened for the first time. If there is no inbox, then it will be created on first opening. In either case it is of course not as in the copied profile -- that means the profile has been "destroyed"/ distorted.

Ergo: If you move the tb-folder to another place, you have to log in to ALL accounts on first statup. Otherwise you will "destroy" your profile.

I hope I am expressing myself distinctly.

Is this normal/ intended, am i doing/ thinking something wrong?

Because it's the same with all 3 above-mentioned portable tb-versions, it's probably an issue of tb itself (I don't know if that also happens with a normally installed tb and a copied profile). But "portable" also does mean "can be moved around and still works", doesn't it ? (That is my reason for using portables: copy them, move them to another pc/ (re-)install a new windows-os > copy them back to where i want > they immediately work without expended new installation (e.g. recreate and reconfigure all e-mail-accounts, views, settings, aliases, ...).)


Remark: I did not change the profile-structure from the default except that I assigned my account folders suitably when I created the accounts in thunderbird. (the default is e.g. "mx.provider_a.com, imap.provider_b.at", but if the providers are the same it would be "mail.gmail.com, mail.gmail-1.com, ..." and i don't like that.)

[JohnTHaller]

With Thunderbird Portable, you should copy the whole Data folder, not just the profile folder. Profile folders are not naturally portable. Thunderbird Portable should portablize them so you can move the whole ThunderbirdPortable profile around. Note that I can't speak for the other illegally-done Thunderbird packages.

[fang-face]

With Thunderbird Portable, you should copy the whole Data folder, not just the profile folder.

OK, I'm going to try that.

move the whole ThunderbirdPortable profile around.

Do You mean "the whole ThunderbirdPortable FOLDER"? That would be what I expect anyway. "PROFILE"? That would be even better and what I wish. Anyway, I'm going to have a look at both and post what I experience.

Ups, indeed I did not have a full install of all 3 versions and move them around. Just one of them and then copied the profile folder into a fresh install of each versoin.

Note that I can't speak for

Yes, that's clear.
Thanks for Your reply.

[JohnTHaller]

Do You mean "the whole ThunderbirdPortable FOLDER"? That would be what I expect anyway. "PROFILE"? That would be even better and what I wish. Anyway, I'm going to have a look at both and post what I experience.

You can move the whole ThunderbirdPortable folder, of course. But you can also move the Data folder if you want to, say, backup a Thunderbird profile using a backup utility, a zip utility, a simple copy, or the PortableApps.com Platform (which has a built-in backup utility that can automatically backup the Data folders of all your apps). Thunderbird's profiles are not natively portable, so we track where they were run from last so we can update the paths within them as you move around. By moving the Data folder around (rather than just profile), you keep the settings folder along with the profile folder so that information remains.

[fang-face]

Sorry for letting pass so much time.
I made some testing with the paf-version, unfortunately without success -- I cannot confirm this:

You can move the whole ThunderbirdPortable folder, of course. But you can also move the Data folder if you want to, say, backup a Thunderbird profile [...]. Thunderbird's profiles are not natively portable, so we track where they were run from last so we can update the paths within them as you move around. By moving the Data folder around (rather than just profile), you keep the settings folder along with the profile folder so that information remains.

What I did:
Extracting the newest version from PA.com to N:/test/test_thunderbird/TB1 (originally I used an older version). Creating several imap-accounts. Starting and closing ThunderbirdPortable several times to make sure that everything works fine.

Extracting a 2. copy to N:/test/test_thunderbird/TB2. Copying "Data" (not just the "profile"-folder) from TB1 to TB2. Starting TB2/ThunderbirdPortable.exe.

I observed the same behaviour as in my first post: If an inbox is not opened at first start, it will get inbox-1.msf, inbox-2, ... . The same result when I moved TB1 to, say, TBmoved.

I forgot to mention: WinXP+SP3 (I cannot test on another system, maybe in a few weeks win7x64). Maybe something is broken there, however it seems to work ok besides that. On the other side, since nobody else seems ever to have seen this, something must be wrong on my system.